


The Secretary

by YoricksTalkingSkull



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/F, Sadomasochism, Slow Burn, TW mental illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-12 19:54:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoricksTalkingSkull/pseuds/YoricksTalkingSkull
Summary: After being hospitalized, Ann Walker is released into the care of her overbearing family. It is then she finds work for a rigid and demanding barrister, Anne Lister.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> Largely inspired by The Secretary (2002), a S&M love story with real depth, tenderness and complexity.

The advertisement was posted in the newspaper, of all places.

'LEGAL SECRETARY WANTED,' it read, 'In the area of defense—EXPERIENCED.'

‘Experienced in what, exactly?’

‘It doesn’t quite say,’ Ann said, putting on her mac, scarf and over-sized boots. ‘But the advertisement does say interviews are walk-in.’

‘Just walk on in, is that right?’ Aunt Ann clicked her tongue. ‘If you think this is real, hate to break it to you, but it hardly seems likely.’

‘What else am I to do?’ Ann stood in the doorway, arms crossed. 'Just wait for something to fall into my lap?'

‘We just want what’s best for you. And if you need to rest given your...your…’

‘My what?’

‘Your state, Ann.’

‘I was discharged two weeks ago.’

‘You’ve been discharged before.’

‘Well,’ Ann said. ‘This time is different.’

‘How?’

‘I need to work,’ Ann said. ‘I need to start my own life.’

‘If the individual you are meeting today is not a serial killer, then perhaps you stand a chance.’

‘I'm not meeting a serial killer,’ Ann reassured. On her way out the door, she heard her aunt continue talking.

_‘No experience listed. Might come to your advantage…”_

Ann closed the door, bringing herself to the nearest bus station that would take her to the underground, to the heart of London.

...

‘Looking for Lister, are we?’

Before entering the offices of Anne Lister, Ann passed a security monitor for the building.

Ann nodded, not asking how he knew, and took the lift up to the seventh floor.

When Ann entered the offices, she immediately needed to adjust her eyes to the darkness inside. She disregarded the coat hanger, left on her over-sized rain boots, and mac. Not seeing anyone in the main corridor, she found herself at a sterile desk, black and emptied.

It was then that Ann heard the sound of crying. Deep, guttural sobs, seemingly coming from beneath the desk. 

‘Hello?’ Ann asked.

A woman emerged from underneath the desk, near its drawers, holding a box. She was struggling to get up and balance the box’s contents. Inside it, were strewn papers, mugs, files. Evidence of the clutter one accumulates in a few months of employment.

This was the source of the sobbing, Ann knew, this woman clutching at the remains of her desk with docile, blue eyes. But before she could ask what had happened, the woman was rushing out of the room, box in hand, leaving a trail of papers in her wake.

At the end of the corridor was a door. Not knowing what else to do or where else to go, Ann stepped inside.

Ann fixed her gaze on a woman dressed all in black, perched at a desk which was as sterile as the one in the now-emptied corridor. The woman continued to type on a typewriter. She did not look up. Her darkened expression was severe, fixed.

‘Are you the barrister?’ Ann asked. ‘The paper advertisement...it said “secretary.”’

‘Are you pregnant?’ The woman asked. Again, she did not look up from her typing.

‘Ex-excuse me?’ Ann said. ‘Are you Miss Lister?’

Anne Lister glanced up enough to catch sight of Ann’s purple rain boots, said ‘yes’ and then repeated the question.

‘Do you plan on getting pregnant?’

‘Uh...no…’ Ann replied.

‘Law should protect you if you choose to,’ Anne said. ‘Remember that.’

Anne moved aside some papers at her desk and ceased to type.

‘Where do you live?’ Anne asked. ‘A flat?’

‘No.’

‘A house.’

‘Yes.’

‘With a partner?’

‘No,’ Ann said. ‘With family.’

Anne sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, passed a pen in-between her teeth. ‘What's your name?’

‘Ann Walker. My name is Ann Walker.’

‘How old are you, Ann?’

‘I’m twenty-seven.’

‘Were you ever married?’

‘With all due respect, Miss Lister, I-’

‘There’s one computer and several typewriters here,’ Anne said, standing and moving over to where Ann stood. ‘Is that a problem?’

Before she could answer, Anne was standing beside her. The difference in height allowed Anne to peer down at her, but only slightly. Slowly, an expression of curiosity replaced Anne’s stern exterior.

'There’s something about you,’ Anne said, leveling her gaze. ‘I can already tell you’re closed up, walled.’

'I know,' Ann said.

Anne peered back at her over steepled fingers.

‘Do you ever loosen up?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ann replied.

‘Well,’ Anne said, still looking her up and down. ‘I’d like a coffee, please.’

‘Coffee?’

‘No, a Guinness—why yes, a _coffee_.’

Ann shuffled down the corridor to an office kitchen, where she found a Keurig. She came back, shaking, with a coffee in hand. Anne gestured for her to sit down beside her on a black leather sofa. Ann did, hesitantly. What followed was a cavernous silence, Ann feeling like an insect, pinned under Lister’s steady glare.

‘So, when can you start?’

‘Um,’ Ann shifted on the sofa. ‘Don’t you want to see-’

‘I had time to rifle through your folder while you were gone. Took you long enough. All the rest—I don't care.’

‘Well,’ Ann said. ‘In that case, I can start tomorrow.’

Anne Lister rose abruptly, leaving Ann on the sofa, alone.

‘Excellent,’ Anne said. ‘Goodbye, now.’

Ann was halfway down the corridor before she heard her name called.

‘Miss Walker,’ she heard Anne say.

Ann walked back down the corridor, and poked her head back in at its occupant, typing away.

‘Less sugar in the coffee next time,’ Anne Lister said.

She motioned for Ann to close the door.

She could have sworn she heard a small, barely audible ‘thank you’ on the way out.


	2. ii

When Ann got home, she closed the front door and pushed her back against the door frame. She found her aunt reading, almost as she left her, propped up in the kitchen. 

‘I got the job, Auntie,’ Ann said, barely believing the words coming from her own mouth. 

‘When do you start?’

‘Tomorrow.’

Before her aunt could ask questions, Ann excused herself to her bedroom at the top of the stairs. She sat on her bed. 

Her mobile rang. 

When she saw the incoming call was from Thomas Ainsworth, she turned off her phone and opened her laptop. 

In what felt like the first time since her hospitalization, she exhaled.

_Don’t think of him, _she thought. _Please, don’t think of him._

She opened a web browser and googled “Anne Lister.”

The entries at the top of the page, to her surprise, were mostly _ Guardian _ articles. She clicked on the first link. The heading of the first article she clicked on was captioned _ ‘Anne Lister: not your typical barrister.’ _In the leading photograph, Anne was posed back-to-back with a woman, a dominatrix named Mistress Vere. Anne was dressed in black, eyes fixed in that same severe expression that Ann had seen, hours before. Mistress Vere was holding a long, black cane, with a ruby end. Anne held what appeared to be a whip, its single-tailed thing, its tail falling over her shoulder. 

_ Employment Rights, _ the headline read, _ Sex Work in the 21st Centuary _

Ann blinked at the screen before her. And then again. 

In that moment, she realised that she had never asked or researched who Anne’s clients were. According to the article, Anne served a wide variety of clients, but had a specialty as a legal defender for sex workers and adult industry professionals.

As Anne continued to search, she found articles on the changing landscape around the internet censorship. She saw how consensual sex work was being driven deeper and deeper underground. She read another article about how in both the UK and US, laws aimed at protecting sex workers were in fact causing greater harm for those who faced human trafficking, driving that world deeper onto the dark web.

Ann found herself pouring over interviews Anne Lister had done with a variety of sex workers, from dominatrixes and street-based workers. She read some articles that Anne wrote on employment rights, another specialty of Anne’s practice. 

When Ann realized it was growing far too late, Ann closed the laptop, and laid down on her back. The image of Anne from the article, her eyes bearing into the camera, was accompanied by a rising and falling feeling of exhaustion, a steady pounding in her ears. 

Static. 

She turned on her cell phone: 4 missed calls (Ainsworth)

Ann closed her eyes, and drifted off, into sleep.

….

Somewhere between dreams and waking, Ann awoke, startled, to the sound of her aunt moving about the house. She bolted out the door and onto the bus, which then took her to the underground. Ann found herself nervously biting at her fingernails, only stopping when she realised she drew blood from her own hand. She adjusted, moved the long sleeves of her jumper up, hiding old scars that sent her to hospital, months ago. 

The image of Anne from the article floated back into her mind, as the train rushed through the underground tunnel. She tried to bar the image in the headlining article from her mind—Anne’s curious sneer and single-tailed whip—as she navigated the swaths of people spilling from the platform, climbing onto the mountainous escalators, flooding the streets above.

When Ann entered the office, it was not long before Anne came barreling up from behind her.

‘If a woman comes in with a rather unappealing choice of plum-coloured lipstick,’ Anne said, poking her head from out of her office, ‘pretend I’m not here. That said, I will have your day’s assignments at the corner of my desk, once they are complete.’

Anne walked past her, and closed her office door. 

Once Ann steadied her breathing, she looked down at a mountain of papers, situated at the centre of her desk. 

And with that, the day was officially in-session. 

....

‘I’m looking for Anne.’

Ann looked up from the pile of documents slowly forming at her desk. Before her was a woman, lips pursed, hands over her chest. 

‘Excuse me?’ the woman said.

Ann watched the women's manicured hands tap anxiously against her own arms. At a glance, the woman had brown hair pinned up in a tight bun, with carefully sculpted curls falling to the sides of her face. Ann noticed the woman’s lips were tightly pursed, and were, quite literally, an unfortunate shade of purple.

‘I’m sorry, I'm afraid Miss Lister can’t see you today,’ Ann said. 

She forced her eyes to meet the woman’s stare, and she held her gaze.

‘Is there _ something _ the matter?’ the woman said, this time, in clear frustration. ‘I’m here to see Anne Lister, and I _will_ see her before I leave.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ann replied, adding gravity to her voice. ‘You will have to leave. She can’t see you today.’

The woman moved behind the barrier of the desk, but Ann, somehow, found herself not feeling afraid. Before Ann could speak however, something caught the woman’s attention. Her eyes shifted to the coat rack. On it, there was a black trench coat.

‘The bloody wench _ is _ here,’ the woman said, reaching for the coat.

‘I never said—’

The woman looked back. ‘I don’t know who you think you are, but I’d hope you know you won’t last long, just like all the other girls.’

Ann said nothing, watched as the woman’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. 

‘Tell Anne,’ the woman said ‘that her ex-wife Marianna Lawton was here—and that her attorney owes me our alimony papers!’

Before Ann could respond, Marianna threw Anne’s trench coat on the floor and began to trample on it, violently, before she stormed out the door. The door closed, its pane rattled. 

Ann watched her leave, then resumed her work.

…. 

Anne did not show her face until later in the afternoon. It was when Ann finished her assigned tasks, and she decided to get up from her desk to retrieve Anne’s coat from the floor. She dusted the coat off with her hands and then hung it carefully on the rack. She was about to go to pack up her folder, when she felt someone watching her. 

She turned, and saw Anne.

Ann froze, realizing that in the process of hanging her coat, Anne could see her shirt sleeves move up, revealing scars that still remained on her wrists. 

Instead of walking back into her office—as Ann thought she would—Anne made her way down the corridor, and to the end of Ann’s desk, seemingly unaffected by what she must have clearly seen. 

‘Have you completed today’s assignments?’ Anne asked.

‘Yes, Anne.’

‘Anne?’

‘_ Miss _ Lister,’ Anne corrected.

‘Yes, _ Miss _ Lister.’

Ann thought she saw Anne beginning to smile, slightly, at the sound of her formal name, but she could not be sure. She found herself looking away, her face flushing, as Anne stepped into her frame of vision, and grabbed the papers at the end of the desk. 

‘I was going to get you off early,’ Anne said, ‘but first, please meet me in my office.’

....

‘Would you like hot cocoa?’

‘Hot cocoa?’ 

‘Yes, I made you hot cocoa. Would you like it?’

‘Yes.’

Anne reached behind the leather sofa where they both sat, and waited for Ann to say something. When she didn’t, and merely took the cocoa, Anne started the conversation.

‘You’re...’ Anne started, then tried again. ‘Ann, I find you unreadable.’

Despite herself, Ann let out a small laugh. ‘What is there to read?’

‘Why do you cut yourself?’ Anne asked her. 

And there it was, for the first time, aired in a room.

‘I…’ Ann started. 

‘This will not affect your employment,’ Anne said. ‘If you’ve at least moderately completed my work assignments, you know I work in employment rights, among other things.’

‘I...Miss Lister-’

Anne sat closer. ‘Let’s put it this way Miss Walker, when I interviewed you, I saw your wrists.’

‘You saw my...my wrists?’

‘Yes, when you fetched my coffee.’

Ann put the teacup down. Her hands were shaking.

‘I used to,’ Ann said. ‘But I’m better now.’

‘Are you?’ Anne asked, she leaned in. 

Ann Walker said nothing, and only wanted to disappear, to float off this sofa, somewhere soft and not real. She felt the corners of her vision blur, the beginning stages of what she knew as dissociation.

‘Ann,’ Anne said. ‘I’m going to need you to take a few deep breaths.’

‘Okay,’ Ann said, and she found her chest rising and falling to Anne’s timing. And as she did, the corners of her vision felt less blurred, more clear and defined. She could feel her hand gripping the leather of the sofa, the sweat on her palms. She could smell something dark and smoky, a scent that must have been Anne’s perfume.

‘Back?’ Anne asked.

‘I-I don’t…’ Ann finally let out. And then. ‘I find this all—I find _ you— _to be quite strange.’

Anne smiled. ‘But yet, you’re here.’

‘I am,’ Ann said.

‘I always wondered,’ Anne tried, again, ‘if a part of hurting oneself, as we all do, is a way to get at the pain we cannot access. At least, on the surface. If years of burying it all down makes us draw it up ourselves, more or less. And after the injury is done, we watch our scars heal. And watching our scars heal is to watch something healing and changing. Maybe that’s what we find comforting.’

There was a heavy silence. Tears formed in Ann’s eyes. 

‘Have I—overstepped?’ Anne asked. 

‘No,’ Ann said. Then with actual reassurance, ‘it’s just…that’s quite a way to put it.’

‘Well,’ Anne said. ‘I know I'm your employer—and there is a prescribed employer-employee relationship—but I want you to know you can discuss your life with me.’

‘I-’

‘Do you understand me, Ann?’

‘Yes,’ she finally said.

‘You will no longer harm yourself. That's in the past now.’

‘This is-’

“Promise me, Ann Walker?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.' 

And with that, Anne offered her a small envelope. 

‘A gift card,’ Anne said. ‘Should cover one meal and thensome at Oliveira. Vegetarian. No longer go there. For reasons. However, I think you may enjoy it.’

‘Why-’

‘Heard your family over the phone during your break,’ Anne noted. 'It sounds like you need a... a breath of fresh air. Would you do that for me?’

‘Uh-yes,’ Ann said, trying to imagine what she had overheard, but Anne collected her cup, then placed a hand on Ann’s back.

Ann felt her hand go lower and then stop, at the small of her back.

‘That will be all, Miss Walker.’


End file.
